Why is Virgin Hyperloop switching from passenger to cargo service?
According to BBC News, the company’s decision was influenced by global supply-chain concerns and Covid.
The Financial Times, which broke the news first, stated that more than 100 employees had been laid off.
Experts have voiced concerns regarding the Hyperloop’s engineering challenges and practicality.
“The global supply chain has undergone major changes in the past year, due in part to the worldwide pandemic,” the company claimed.
Virgin Hyperloop as a firm is focusing its resources on developing a cargo-based hyperloop system in response to strong customer demand.”
Elon Musk, a tech entrepreneur, proposed a high-speed transportation system in a vacuum tube in a 2013 research paper, and the Hyperloop was born.
The pods would travel at over 600mph (1,000km/h) through the tubes on magnetic rails identical to those used by existing Maglev trains.
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies and Virgin Hyperloop are two companies attempting to make the concept a reality.
After British entrepreneur Richard Branson invested $85 million (£62 million) in Virgin Hyperloop in 2017, the company was renamed Hyperloop Technologies.
So far, Virgin Hyperloop is the only business that has successfully performed a passenger ride using hyperloop technology. In November 2020, it took two passengers, both company employees, on a 500m test track, reaching 107mph (172km/h).
Many people, though, believed the technology was more hype than Hyperloop.
Because the transportation system can’t handle bends right now, the rails must run in a straight path.
Furthermore, the expenses of constructing such systems at scale would be billions of dollars.
